The GOP's 2014 platform, and not necessarily a winning one.
Google Consumer Surveys for Daily Kos. 4/4/14. All adults. MoE ~3% (varies by question and tab). (
12/7-9/13 results)
If the election for U.S. House of Representatives were held today, which candidate would you vote for in your congressional district?
If Democrats win the House popular vote by six points, they'd have a
50/50 chance to win back the chamber. To virtually guarantee a Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we'd have to win the House popular vote by nine points. That's the power of the GOP's gerrymander.
This poll gives Democrats a seven-point lead, giving us a better than even chance to retake the chamber. But notice the massive "unsure." Part of that comes from the fact that this is a poll of all adults, not just registered voters. In fact, about a quarter of the sample didn't vote in 2012, so we can safely assume they won't vote in 2014 either. (We can also assume that a chunk of 2012 voters won't vote this year, weighed heavily among our core base groups. For example, 25-34 year-olds favor Democrats 40-15. Too bad too many of them will sit things out. As always, if we turn out, we win, but I digress.)
Regardless, we're in good shape with those who express an intent to vote this November. And here's where things get really interesting: Notice that a huge chunk of those "unsure" about voting are also "unsure" about Obamacare (highlighted in green).
That 46 percent number highlighted may very well be key to this year's elections—the more those people move toward the "Keep" or "Expand" categories, the better Democrats will do. And that applies equally to low-performing voters and current non-voters who might be persuaded to engage electorally to protect the new law. Republicans want to make 2014 a referendum on Obamacare. Democrats should be happy to play along. I mean, look at this!
Support for Medicaid Expansion- 59/30 in PA, 58/33 in Florida, 57/35 in Maine, 54/38 in Georgia, 53/32 in Kentucky, 52/35 in Kansas
— @ppppolls
One final point: That 70 percent of Republican 2014 voters who want the ACA repealed (highlighted in red)? That number was 80 percent in December. Where did they go? In December, only 6 percent wanted the law "kept but scaled back," that number is now 13 percent. So as conservatives double-down on their "repeal" strategy, it is becoming less salient even to their own base.